Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The land

Romania
can be roughly divided into equal portions of mountains, hills, and plains. It
is a diverse country, both physically and politically. The flat south,
including the capital Bucharest, is dominated by etnic Romanians.

But
drive for three hours north and you’re suddenly in the middle of mountains,
hearing Hungarian spoken. Drive east instead and you’re likely to spot a mosque
by the beach, catering to a Turkish contingent.

The central area has most of the mountains, which
extend northwards to the region that is home to most country’s famous
monasteries. The southeast, including the capital and most important city
Bucharest, is low-lying. The east features Romania’s only stretch of coastline,
the Black Sea coast. The northern part of the shoreline expands eastwards to
form the Danube Delta, Europe’s main wetland, which is teeming with avian and
aquatic life.

Romania has a great deal of picturesque countryside,
from dazzling sunflower fields in the southeast to snow-capped mountains of
Transylvania. Rural areas are a hotchpotch of small farms which seem to belong
to a bygone age.

Two areas that are comparatively hostile to humans
but particularly welcoming to nature underpin Romanian’s role as an important
environment for flora and fauna. The first is the Carpathians. With little
incursion from man, significant populations of large carnivores were able to
survive and prosper here, even as they were extirpated from much of the rest of
Europe. Carpathian deer, brown bears, wolves, hares, black chamois, lynx, boars
and foxes all reside in the forest-coated mountain ranges.

The second area of note is Danube Delta, whose
ever-changing make-up has provided relief for legions of bird, plant and fish
species, including the pelican and caviar-producing sturgeon.